Hundreds rally for Highlands

The meeting was organised by Highlands Estate resident Graeme Blow.

Mr Blow, along with Elisha Johnson and Joanne Hart, spoke to the crowd about the importance of protecting the park.

Mr Blow highlighted the community’s engagement with his petition opposing the reclassification, which received more than 850 signatures. Combined with the Winbi Park petition, there were 1000 signatories by the time of the council meeting on Tuesday.

At the meeting, he urged the council to listen to community feedback, which councillors clearly did with their rescission motion

“We trust that council decisions will be positive for the wellbeing of residents by not proceeding with the sale of community-owned parkland,” he said.

“This park, and other parks, are entrenched in family life and part of the fabric of our day-to-day.”

Ms Johnson, an occupational therapist and mother, explained the mental and physical health benefits of green space.

“There wouldn’t be an hour in the day that goes by where there isn’t a child that isn’t playing on play equipment, throwing, catching, hitting balls with racquets, riding, roller-blading, creating in the shrub areas,” she said.

“The occupational therapist in me understands the importance of green space in its incidental opportunities to engage children... a child’s number one occupation is play.

“Green space is very versatile in providing children with unlimited possibilities to engage in play.

“There is compelling evidence, from a large number of studies, that there’s a positive association between exposures to parkland and recovery from daily stresses.”

An early childhood educator, Ms Hart discussed the park’s importance for her business and its benefits for all ages.

“Having a beautiful, safe parkland for our children to come to is so important for our children’s health and emotional needs,” she said.

“We not only come to the park for play, but also for the children’s social skills.

“We don’t need to have children kept inside playing on their phone or playing on iPads or glued to the TV.

“We need to see our little friends outside playing, running, jumping and laughing.”

Murray River Council Mayor Frank Crawley and councillor Tom Weyrich also addressed the crowd and fielded questions.

Residents were at times hostile towards the pair, but made time to thank them for attending the meeting and being open for discussion.

“I’ve never seen such a big turnout for anything, and I’ve been in local government for 40 years,” Cr Crawley said.